feeling that something was not right, and somehow this telephone call would be party to it. Picking up the receiver, a familiar voice blurted out urgently:
“Michael? It’s Pamela!”
“Mrs Winfield?” I answered, taken aback.
“Michael, is Julian with you?”
Julian’s mother Pamela was not the worrying type, yet the urgency in her voice was unmistakable. In my current mindset, I felt uneasy too, the reason for which escaped me at the time.
“No, he isn’t here, Mrs Winfield”
“Michael, I know it’s silly, but Julian didn’t come home last night. He has never done so before without telling me.”
Julian had converted the upstairs rooms of his mother’s house into a studio apartment. Pamela told me that she had not become concerned when he initially failed to appear for breakfast, but when it had reached 11 am; she had gone to wake him, only to find he had not slept there that night.
What had been strange was that Pamela seemed to think I had been out socialising with Julian the previous night, an untruth that apparently originated from Julian. In fact, he had telephoned me to say he may not be able to see me for a couple of days. I was tempted at the time to ask why, but he didn’t volunteer the information and I did not labour the point as I wanted to continue working on my music rather than getting involved in a protracted conversation.
Whatever the reason for his strange behaviour, I felt compelled for some reason, maybe out of some loyalty to Julian, not to inform Pamela of our conversation, but instead offered to telephone a few acquaintances to see if I could locate him. This entire episode now seemed out of character and I wished I had asked him where he had been going. In reality, I had no idea who Julian was likely to confide in, so I resigned myself to waiting for him to contact me at some stage whereupon I would ask him to telephone home had he not already done so.
This was not to be. At 2pm, Pamela appeared in person having driven over by car. She apparently decided she would wait no longer and had started seeking out Julian’s whereabouts herself. In certain circles, Mrs Winfield was known for having a rather overpowering personality, one that surpassed that of even the late Mr Winfield, and it was not considered wise to be an obstacle in her way. When Pamela started a crusade, she generally bulldozed her way through to the end.
“Can you tell me exactly when you last saw him, Michael?”
The question was direct and aimed like a bolt between my eyes. I could see her searching my face, reading every nervous twitch and tick. It was useless to carry on this ‘loyalty of friendship’ nonsense, as I was not inclined to mislead Pamela any further. The furrows of worry in her brow made me regret my earlier deceit. I instead told her what little I knew.
After I explained Julian’s mysterious telephone call and attempted to recount his words to me as best as I could remember them, Pamela had, much to my surprise, appeared visibly relieved.
“If Julian said he needed to go somewhere, then I am sure he had good reason to do so” she said, “What I cannot understand is why he never informed me?”
I tried diplomatically to suggest that by telling me, he knew she would eventually get to hear of it. If he had tried to tell her directly, she would probably have never let him go without an explanation. Pamela, stared at me while she mulled this logic over, and then said quietly,
“You don’t think of me as such an old battle-axe, do you?”
She mercifully spared me the need for a reply by continuing,
“I would like to think that Julian would feel confident enough to approach me on anything he was concerned about, but possibly you are right.”
She conceded the point but gave me the stern Mrs Winfield stare. She then added,
“You have told me everything haven’t you, Michael?”
After I assured her that I knew no more, her face relaxed a little and she started to leave.
“If you hear anything Michael…”
She never finished the sentence, not having to as it was meant as a warning shot across the bows. She knew I would not disappoint her twice.
CHAPTER TWO
Julian: Sussex, England
3rd September 2003
I did not sleep well that night, but instead lay awake listening to some ghostly owl hooting somewhere. Its cry sounded rather scary and disturbing like some banshee. Subconsciously I awaited Julian’s phone call whilst I tried to understand what could have made him disappear in that way.
I tried to imagine what could possibly have happened to him and wondered where he was at that very moment. In attempting to understand his feelings and thoughts, I tried to remember all our meetings and conversations for the last two to three weeks. Something had worried him, I could tell from the tone of his voice, and not for the last time, I cursed my selfishness in wanting some solitude for my composition that prevented me from obtaining a suitable explanation for his actions. Something should explain his sudden disappearance, something out of the ordinary, something that had upset him… then it hit me!
“Last Tuesday week! It happened exactly last Tuesday!”
I suddenly realised I had shouted out aloud to myself in the dark, and feeling a little foolish, I switched on the bedside light and tried to recollect my thoughts.
I was at the studio rehearsing when I was called to the telephone. I remember it quite clearly as my producer had been rather irked by the interruption, but the caller had said it was urgent.
It had been Julian, and I remember he sounded rather agitated.
“Michael, could you come over when you finish up tonight?” Before I could answer he added a plea, “Please, I think something may be wrong with me.”
My producer Matthew made winding up motions in the foreground and pointed to his watch to indicate our allotted studio time was running out. The last recording had just not sounded right, and we were on the fifth attempt. Nerves were frayed all round.
“Julian, I can’t at the moment….things are not going right here, it will have to be tomorrow. Is that OK?”
Julian mumbled something about me doing my best and hung up almost as abruptly as he had called.
The next day had been almost as bad as the previous, and we agreed to postpone the recording until I made some changes, although I had no idea at this stage what they were to be. I had been so preoccupied with this that it was only much later in the day that I remembered Julian’s telephone call.
When I finally arrived at Julian’s mother’s house, he answered the door immediately. His eyes had an almost maniacal brightness, but he looked generally rather pale and drawn. Whatever was troubling him had apparently kept him up half the night, and it was starting to show. He hooked an arm over my shoulder as he ushered me in and I felt him trembling as he rested his hand on my arm. I feigned a cheerful voice in a feeble attempt to cheer him up, “What’s wrong with
